Plant Adaptation Book and Activities

Amazing Plant Powers has been out for awhile but I just got around to making these FREE printable activity pages...oops! This picture book is full of information about plant adaptations and has received nice reviews such as "A great supplement to plant units, and a welcome introduction to informational texts,” from a review by School Library Journal. More info is available on this page of my web site.

Click book cover image to get FREE activity pages in my TPT store.

My husband Andy and I co-wrote it and took most of the photographs, which are the primary images in the book. Andy has a Ph.D. in plant pathology so that was a big help! Amazing Plant Powers is available from the usual sources so request it from your librarian or order it from a bookstore to make use of these printable pages.

The objective for these activities is to engage students in looking closely at the text, photographs, vocabulary, and other content in the book, per the Common Core State Standards for Reading Informational text. Here is what is included:
• a photosynthesis diagram to label
• plant power searches
• book report poster activity
• plant superhero writing prompt
• plant product search
• scavenger hunt
• journal note pages

Click image to view FREE printable pages for Amazing Plant Powers.

I hope these pages will be useful and enjoyable for your classroom or library. Thank you so much for coming by, and if you’d enjoy more posts about children's books, classroom activities, educational resources, and freebies >>> please subscribe on the blog sidebar.

Happy reading!

Loreen Leedy
Children's author-illustrator
Instagram: @loreenleedybooks
Pinterest: @LoreenLeedy
Facebook: @authorLoreenLeedy

Animal Tracks Snacks!

To celebrate my new book Step by Step, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for using it in the classroom, such as in this previous post. Recently, while browsing through Instagram, some creative posts under hashtags such as #funfoodforkids and #healthykidsfood inspired me into a flurry of scribbling. Wouldn’t it be fun to munch on some pepperoni paw prints or deer footprints in cream cheese “snow”? 

Scribbling down some #funfood ideas for snacks that look like animal tracks.

To briefly summarize the book, each right hand page has tracks made by a variety of baby animals including mammals, reptiles, birds, and invertebrates. Each adorable (or at least intriguing) baby is revealed to young readers on the next page. The simple repetitive text and realistic illustrations make it an ideal informational book for PreK, Kindergarten, and First grade classrooms.

Cover and pages from Step by Step, a book of baby animal  tracks. Click image to get freebie pages in my TPT shop.

The appetizing snack examples shown in the photos are duckling, fawn, puppy, and penguin tracks, which are easy to make. The paw prints are cut up pepperoni slices, the fawn track is an almond cut in half, and the penguin’s are pretzel sticks carefully “sawn” with a serrated knife.

Just a few of the yummy snacks you can make to tie in with animal tracks, baby animals, nature, wildlife, and similar themes.

The duckling tracks started as a square slice of cheese. Cut as seen below: gently slice horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Trim corners off as shown. I also cut off the pointy back part of the duckling footprint. 

Duck track cheese cutting diagram (have you ever seen one of these before, lol?!?) 

Here are some useful ingredients for making animal track snacks:
 BASE LAYER Rice cakes • Crackers • Bread slices • Pancakes • Sliced vegetables such as cucumbers
 STICKY LAYER  Cream cheese for “snow” • Peanut butter for “soil” or “mud” • Butter “sand”
 TRACKS Pretzels • Deli meats • Cheese slices • Salami • Nuts • Pieces of fruits and vegetables

Pretzel sticks, pepperoni slices, and, cheddar cheese make penguin chick, puppy, and duckling tracks.

You’ve probably noticed by now that these examples use non-sugary ingredients. But cookies, frosting, and candies could provide similar results. If you make any animal track snacks, please let me know because I would love to see what you come up with! 

Thanks so much for coming by. If you’d enjoy more posts about children's books, classroom activities, educational resources, and freebies >>> please subscribe on the blog sidebar.

Happy reading!

Loreen Leedy
Children's author-illustrator
Instagram: @loreenleedybooks
Pinterest: @LoreenLeedy
Facebook: @authorLoreenLeedy

Making Animal Tracks Step by Step

If you're planning baby animal, nature, or habitat themes for primary kids in your classroom or library, my new nonfiction picture book Step by Step will come in handy. The book starts with pages full of muddy paw prints and the question, "Who walks in the mud?” When young readers turn the page they'll find the answer (a puppy.)

A puppy walks in the mud, that’s who! 

The next page asks, “Who waddles to the pond?”  It turns out to be a mallard duckling. The simple pattern of the text combined with realistic illustrations make it an ideal informational text for Preschool to Grade 1 readers (or readers-in-training.) It works well as a read aloud and for individual perusal. The back matter includes additional facts for kids to discover.

The book's first review has already come in and is very positive (whew!):
“...The simple, patterned presentation neatly imparts multifaceted information, and a handy, succinct addendum will encourage second and third views. Effortlessly enlightening.” Kirkus Reviews

I'm super excited that a board book edition of Step by Step for babies and toddlers will also be available. Though I've been in the children's book biz since 1984, this is my very FIRST board book. The official publication date is in May.

Let's brainstorm a few ways to use this book, shall we?
 THEMES
 • baby animals and their names
 • animal tracks
 • nature
 • habitats
 • doing things “step by step”

CONTENT
 • tracks • footprint • paw print • toes • claw • walk • waddle • crawl • run • hop • dig • mud • sand • snow • mammal • bird • reptile • invertebrate • insect • crab • birth • hatch • egg • baby • grow

ACTIVITY IDEAS
 • Whose Tracks are These? Cut sponges into animal footprint shapes, glue to corregated cardboard, then print tracks with paint. Draw a picture of the animal that corresponds to the tracks.
 • Who’s Making Tracks? Trace around feet on construction paper, cut out and make tracks leading to each child’s picture on a bulletin board.
 • We Learn Step by Step: bulletin board promoting perseverance, grit, staying on task.

For FREE printable activity pages that tie in directly, please click on the image below to pick them up in my TPT shop:

Click here to view the Step by Step activity pages

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Happy reading!

Loreen Leedy
Children's author-illustrator
Instagram: @loreenleedybooks
Pinterest: @LoreenLeedy
Facebook: @authorLoreenLeedy

From print to digital with a picture book

Some years ago I wrote and illustrated a nonfiction picture book about the life cycle story of sea turtles that was published by Doubleday. Tracks in the Sand had a starred review, multiple printings, and was named an Outstanding Science Trade Book by the National Science Teachers Association. But like most books, it eventually went out of print and could only be found in libraries or perhaps a used book store.

The funny thing is, the sea turtle life cycle has not changed in millions of years. So the content of this book is still accurate and useful for general informational reading as well as Ocean, Reptile, or Turtle units in classrooms. When the technology for digital books became readily available, especially tablet reading devices, it seemed like a great opportunity to bring Tracks back to life. Here are the basic steps I followed:
• Ask the publisher to return all rights.
• Revise the planned layout and/or text as needed.
• Scan the artwork and adjust colors.
• Reformat the pages to fit tablet and projection screens.
• Place type on the pages.
• Save in desired format.
• Upload to online shop or bookstore.

It actually took weeks to get it all done. Some other requirements came up because the first digital version was for the iBookstore, so each page had to be cut in half to work with their "page-turn" animations, and a half-page cover had to be created. To see a preview of how it looks as an iBook, click here. Personally, I'm not a fan of the whole page-turn thang, it just seems kind of silly. And I really dislike how the digital “gutter" is so visually prominent. Too distracting and phony.

Picture books present some tricky issues when adapted into a digital format. Unlike text, images don't easily reflow, and if a two-page spread was originally designed as one wide image, it doesn't work well to split it up. The only alternative is to make the wide image very small, then the reader has to zoom in and swipe around to see it up close. Awkward.

My solution for Tracks was to completely redesign the pages—each digital page is about 75% of a two-page spread from the print book. Some people may prefer to keep a digital book as similar as possible to the original print version which is certainly an option. Not me, I enhanced the contrast in the art, left out some images entirely, and moved some seashells around. I also made a few minor changes to the text, such as moving a text reference to “mating” from the beginning to the end of the text.

Recently I decided to put Tracks in PDF form, which can be read in the iBooks app (without any page-turns), viewed in a PDF reader app, or shown via a projection system in a classroom. Here is a composite image which also shows the printable activity pages. To see a preview in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop, click here.

Hopefully this post gives a helpful overview of what is involved in putting an out-of-print picture book into digital form. If you're really organized, you could design the book from the start with digital in mind. Step one might be to avoid double-page spreads. Not sure if that's a good idea, but it's something to consider.

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Loreen
Children's author-illustrator
Instagram: @loreenleedybooks
Pinterest: @LoreenLeedy
Facebook: @authorLoreenLeedy